We’re constantly in conversation with our senses – smell especially. When we arrive at a new scent, we filter its notes through our own references and experiences, finding meaning that's completely unique to the individual.
It’s why fragrance is so evocative, and so deeply personal. Take Molton Brown Rose Dunes, for example. When jewellery designer Gala Colivet Dennison first smelled the spicy-floral perfume, she was immediately reminded of her mother. ‘The earlier memories that I have of jewellery and perfume is how my mum would embody it,’ she explains. ‘She would wear quite powerful, musky, genderless scents.’
Her incredibly specific response, to a perfume beloved by so many, speaks to the powerful link between scent, memory and emotion. It’s also a credit to Molton Brown's practice of giving perfumers carte blanche to create scents inspired by real human experiences rather than chasing after trending notes.
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Senior perfumer Philippe Paparella created Rose Dunes in part to honour his grandmother. A ‘partner in crime’, she would give him gifts of essential oils, kickstarting a life-long love affair.
The perfume is rich and complex – it opens with saffron, giving way to a heart of velvety rose and a base of dark patchouli and oud. ‘It’s not a linear fragrance,’ says Paparella, adding that it was inspired by time spent living in Dubai, of ‘the heat and the saffron colour of the sand at a certain time of the day’.
Artists of Note
For Dennison, the complexity of Rose Dunes evoked ‘an element of mystery’. The designer is one of three creatives invited to join Molton Brown’s Artists of Note project, in which a series of luminaries are challenged to share their own interpretations of the brand’s most iconic scents.
Her ‘visceral’ response to Rose Dunes is a piece of wearable art in her signature sculptural style. It represents the way the perfume ‘gradually unfolds’, with a woven element serving to illustrate the idea of infinity.
The series also features a new work by the punk poet Dr John Cooper Clark, who chose to focus on Molton Brown’s Coastal Cypress & Sea Fennel, a refreshingly salty, woody, marine scent. Fresh fig leaves and fiery ginger crash like waves against notes of jasmine and sea-soaked cypress, with a decadent base of leather and musk. Clark found it ‘refreshing and slightly soporific’ and was immediately transported to the coast. He captured this sensation through poetry, a stirring reading of which is below.
‘Lineage through craft’
Rounding off the initial trio of works, menswear designer Nicholas Daley shared his interpretation of Molton Brown’s Re-charge Black Pepper. The citrus-woody scent evokes the spirit of off-road adventure, with an earthy base of vetiver punctuated by spiky bergamot and pepper.
It reminded Daley of Scotland, where his mother was born. He collaborated with her and her knitting circle on a pair of crocheted and knitted pieces, honouring ‘that transferral of knowledge, this idea of lineage through craft’.
The ongoing series underlines the individual spirit at the heart of each Molton Brown fragrance, and the ways in which we each have our own unique responses to them. As Dennison found, ‘it's for the wearer to reinterpret’ – to discover their own meaning and to create new memories.
Meet all three Artists of Note and explore the project in full at Molton Brown
Re-charge Black Pepper Eau de Parfum 100ml
Rose Dunes Eau de Parfum 100ml
